Deep funk around the world: Japan

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:04:40 -0800

My grasp of deep funk has always been of the "I can't define it, but I know it when I hear it" variety, but now I have come up with a working definition: deep funk is funk that pretends P-Funk never happened. How's that? Japan's Osaka Monaurail (named after James Brown's "(It's Not the Express) It's the J.B.'s Monaurail") are deep funk veterans by now, having formed in 1992 "to play the late 60's - early 70's funkies," so they're quite good at it by now. Here's a track from their 2004 album, Thankful:

09 mind power (pts 1 & 2)

Osaka Monaurail

That song has a similar feel to "Ooh Baby" by Defunkt (from my very first entry on this blog): similar beat, similar structure, and similar dynamics. Here's "Ooh Baby" again:

Defunkt - Ooh Baby

Defunkt

Not entirely dissimilar? There's a concise interview with Osaka Monaurail leader Ryo Nakata on the Metropolis website; he's been into the deep funk revival since it began in the 80s. He also proves to be very insightul about the life and music of James Brown. But more importantly, he's a dynamic performer:

Osaka Monaurail in SunSetLive 2005

And finally, no responsible band would be without a MySpace page.

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Deep funk around the world: Japan